


What a Magnetic Force of a Woman (My Lover)

by sweeterthankarma



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Bisexual Nancy Wheeler, F/F, Period-Typical Homophobia, an underrated ship, these girls own my heart
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-27
Updated: 2019-09-27
Packaged: 2020-10-29 02:10:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,009
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20788871
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sweeterthankarma/pseuds/sweeterthankarma
Summary: Robin fell in love in a way that reminded her of thunderstorms; Nancy moves and acts and talks like lightning, like pelting rain and ricocheting, echoing thuds of sound that ring around the flatlands and hills of her heart. Robin is a downpour herself, a flash flood of emotion and humor and confidence though it doesn’t always show, and sometimes she forgets that. When she doesn’t, though, she remembers what she wants, what she deserves, what she needs in a lover, and she imagines how good that kind of devotion will be once she finally gets her hands on it.Robin didn’t expect it to come like this.





	What a Magnetic Force of a Woman (My Lover)

**Author's Note:**

> Robin and Nancy are my new obsession so I had so much fun writing this! It was a rather stream of consciousness type fic as far as the ideas that struck me; I started off imagining Robin falling in love with Nancy and my mind just took off on its own. I definitely want to write more of them in the future so if you have any suggestions, feel free to share! 
> 
> Title comes from the song "Lover" by Taylor Swift with mildly altered phrasing.

To say Robin Buckley had fallen hard and fast for Nancy Wheeler would have been the biggest understatement of the year — and the travesty at Starcourt had been labeled a mere “chemical related accidental blaze.” (Actually, not only was that an understatement but a flat out lie, but Robin isn’t thinking too much about technicalities right now, isn’t thinking about anything except Nancy, Nancy,  _ Nancy.) _

Robin fell in love in a way that reminded her of thunderstorms; Nancy moves and acts and talks like lightning, like pelting rain and ricocheting, echoing thuds of sound that ring around the flatlands and hills of her heart. Robin is a downpour herself, a flash flood of emotion and humor and confidence though it doesn’t always show, and sometimes she forgets that. When she doesn’t, though, she remembers what she wants, what she deserves, what she needs in a lover, and she imagines how good that kind of devotion will be once she finally gets her hands on it. 

Robin didn’t expect it to come like this, didn’t expect it to come from Nancy goody-two-shoes Wheeler, and she definitely didn’t expect it to be better than she could have ever anticipated.

She’d called Nancy a priss to Steve’s face (almost eight months before she’d even begin to dream about what Nancy’s lips tasted like, ten months before she’d find out) and she’d watched the way he defended her. Despite their falling out, despite the way that Nancy only ever looked at him like she was sorry or like she didn’t know him, Steve had insisted that Nancy was different, that she was good, that she was worthwhile. Robin hadn’t understood, and admittedly, she had little to no kind words to say about her last ex— if she could even call her an ex— and she certainly wouldn’t spare them just to be polite.

So, Robin didn’t plan to love Nancy. Not for even a second . It’s not like anyone really plans to love anyone, but usually there’s some innate preparation or at least some expectations. With Nancy, she hadn’t been around at all, and honestly, Robin kind of forgot that she existed sometimes. But then, one day she  _ was  _ around, and after that, she never really left.  Robin kept finding herself in her orbit, without meaning and without cause, and when it was over she’d be stuck thinking about her and not always even knowing why. It was unintentional, out of the blue, and definitely not what Robin wanted, but in hindsight, just what she needed. Nancy, in all her guts and glory and emotion, was just what Robin had been waiting for.

Robin reflects on it often. She wonders when it all began, when Nancy first started to really cross her conscience, and she knows it was in May, when being around her started to feel like routine after a while. It was the little things that would really do it for Robin, really make her begin to fall, like the way that Nancy would come into Family Video multiple times a week— and looking back, Robin really should have known then that Nancy was flirting, or at least wanted to be her friend (nobody seriously rents out  _ Ghostbusters  _ that many times, not even for their nerdy little brother’s friends.) 

But Robin hadn’t really thought of it that way, not even when she finally allowed herself to admit that maybe, just maybe, she was starting to have a tiny little minor unimportant and very insignificant crush on her. 

_ So what?  _ she’d reprimand herself.  _ You get crushes on hundreds of girls, this is nothing new.  _

But the thing was, Nancy stuck around. She’d bike with Robin, coming up alongside her too often to be coincidence, and sometimes they’d talk, sometimes they wouldn’t. Either way, when Nancy was sick one day and wasn’t there to pedal beside her, Robin found herself not only waiting a few extra minutes for her but also feeling remarkably lonely. (Okay, she spent twenty five minutes loitering, and she’d asked Steve if he knew where she was when he passed her on his way to Dairy Queen with Dustin.) 

Robin thinks that’s exactly why she’s so in love with Nancy— and she’ll admit it now, say it proudly to those who are safe to tell, she wants to scream it from the rooftops and paint it in glittering, rainbow colors across her body and her brand new (heavily used) car: with Nancy, she is anything but lonely. 

She had found out almost immediately after allowing Nancy into her space that she’s so many things: she’s determined and gentle and insistent and sure, smug and vulnerable and confident and sweet. She’s changed everything around Robin in a matter of months, and she’s done it all with a fire that Robin is never jealous of but only mesmerized by; not for even a second does she ever feel like it’s too much. It’s overwhelming, sure, but everything about the way that Robin loves is overwhelming, too, so Nancy is a perfect match for her. 

Robin has been closeted for too long, and while she still is in some ways, she’s braver, less afraid with love at her side. Steve knows about her— about them, and god bless him for not being upset at all, unlike what Robin had anticipated, what with Nancy being his ex and all. Mike knows, as do Eleven and Max (and Robin and Nancy are betting money that those two secretly have a crush on each other; Nancy thinks Eleven will speak up about it eventually, Robin is sure that Max will make the first move.)

All of the kids that have embedded themselves in Robin’s life know of their love, and they treat it just fine, fair and square, like it’s nothing out of the ordinary. Compared to Mind Flayers and Demogorgons, after all, it really isn’t.

Their acceptance is damn near close to being worthy of a celebration to Robin, though, especially because the entire Wheeler family doesn’t mind Robin at all. In fact, they kind of like her. It’s strange.

She’s not used to being met with smiles rather than pursed lips and raised eyebrows. She’s not used to caring conversation in place of disapproving, silence. That’s all that Nancy knows, though, and lord, is she lucky. Her family isn’t perfect, not by any means (Nancy cries into Robin’s shoulder far too often about the fact that she knows, deep in her gut, that her mom is unfaithful to her dad) but it’s far much more of a home than Robin has. Especially given the fact that neither of Nancy’s parents did anything but smile when they caught their daughter holding hands with a girl in their living room, Robin thinks she’ll gladly consider them to be her own family, too. 

Robin goes over to Nancy’s for dinner almost every night. It’s easy because her mother is usually too drunk to give a shit where she is and her father is convinced she’s hooking up with Steve no matter how many times she tells him they’re just friends. (He’s been giving her condoms on her way out the door, ones she dutifully passes over to Steve who takes them with open, grabby hands like it’s Christmas despite the fact that they both know he hasn’t been getting any action lately.)

“How are you, sweetheart?” Nancy’s mom, Karen, will ask when Robin hangs her coat up on the same hook by the door that she always uses, and Robin will blush out of simplistic happiness. Even her favorite aunt, the one who she’s pretty sure is closeted and is secretly dating the family friend that always comes to Christmas dinners, has never been so genuine. 

“Good, how about yourself?” Robin will say, and she’ll mean it.

That’s the power of Nancy Wheeler. 

Robin is good. Robin is happy for the first time in her life, really happy. Not only does she have a breathtakingly beautiful, ridiculously smart and unbelievably badass girlfriend (who’s taught her how to wield guns and knives and pick locks, just in case of another impending monster attack), but she’s found a place to belong, a place where she actually fits in for once. 

It isn’t perfect— she doesn’t really vibe with Lucas no matter how hard she tries to make conversation and she hasn’t had enough time to talk to Mike to really get to know him, despite being at his house constantly. Also, she can’t deny the almost guilty wish for friends her age (especially someone over twenty one who could buy her and Nancy wine so they could stop sneaking it from her mother’s cabinet.) 

It’s good though— Robin’s life, that is. And Nancy’s love, it’s so much more than good. Robin doesn’t have the vocabulary to begin to explain it, if she’s honest, and she prides herself on being a straight A student and even winning the spelling bee four years in a row in middle school. But Nancy leaves her breathless, at a loss for words nearly every day even if they’re doing something as simple as staying in bed and watching shitty cartoons all afternoon.

The first time Nancy had kissed her, Robin didn’t have a single coherent thing to say afterwards. It was fine because they just went right back to kissing, but she beats herself up over it sometimes. She tells Nancy about it, that she wishes she could have been clever, smooth, flirty— any of the three, but preferably all at once, to knock Nancy off her feet the way she had just done to her.

“You were perfect in that night, in that moment,” Nancy says when Robin brings it up again, maybe the third time this week because Robin’s feeling especially reflective as of late, and her girlfriend’s words are assuring. Nancy repeats them a lot, shares the sentiment that she’s perfect, and Robin doesn’t believe it but she knows that Nancy does. Every time, her heart beats faster than she thought was possible and she thinks she might swell up and float away like a balloon, filled with pure happiness instead of helium. 

“That’s not possible,” Nancy laughs when Robin shares this analogy out loud; she’s love drunk and also a little  _ drunk  _ drunk, having borrowed a bottle of Steve’s cherry vodka. (He knows he isn’t going to get it back, at least not with any liquid left in it.) 

“Yes, it is,” Robin insists, giggling into the soft bare skin of Nancy’s shoulder. “It’s how I feel.”

“Okay, then maybe you’re right,” Nancy admits, giving in. Her hand trips up inside Robin’s shirt, smooths along her back and makes goosebumps rise at her touch. “Because that’s how I feel too.”

Robin’s far more suave now that they’re familiar with each other, and Nancy knows the ins and outs of her confidence damn well now, especially in times like these. The bedroom door is locked, the music playing is just loud enough to be a distraction from _ ...other _ sounds that anyone passing in the hallway might be able to hear, but Robin can still hear Nancy’s heartbeat thudding against her ear, making her own pulse quicken in return.

“Get out of these clothes,” Robin says moments later, and it’s a tender demand, a wish that Nancy is eager to fulfill. And when she does, when she lays back against the pillows and pushes the blankets out of the way to leave herself exposed, beautiful, she’ll give Robin those eyes and let her give and give and _give. _

Robin’s more familiar with this aspect of dating; it had taken Nancy weeks after first making love to Robin to get up the nerve to go down on her, just out of fear of not being good at it. And it had taken practice, a few stumbles and giggly, awkward, brushed off moments in the beginning, but Nancy is  _ magic.  _ She’s good at everything, and she’s especially good at loving Robin. 

Nancy gives, too. She knows how to splurge, how to give Robin all her attention, and while she certainly doesn’t  _ need  _ a bouquet of flowers on her bedroom windowsill at least once a week, just for the hell of it, she adores getting them and she certainly isn’t going to complain. 

_ For my princess,  _ the attached note always reads, and Robin takes a Polaroid photo of each bouquet, keeps a petal and staples it to the back of the film even though it’s bound to wilt in time. Back when Robin and Nancy were barely friends, hardly even acquaintances, she had taken to calling Nancy “princess,” sure that the girl was no brighter than the burnt out bulb on the ceiling of her basement and just as empty as the cabinets below. Oh, how wrong she had been, and in time the phrase began to belong to Nancy, full of endearment and sweetness when directed at Robin instead. 

“Good morning, princess,” she’ll say when Robin wakes up with her cheek on Nancy’s bicep and her arm slung across her waist, and even when she wipes the drool from her lip and rakes her fingers through her mussed hair only to get caught in knots, Nancy looks at her like she’s beautiful, like she really is a princess. Robin believes it only a little bit, but when Nancy gives her those eyes, it’s a little more comprehensible. Someone like Nancy loving someone like Robin...it still makes Robin dizzy with adrenaline, but it’s a beautiful truth. 

Sometimes, when the flower store runs out peonies— Robin’s favorite— Nancy will pick dandelions and daisies or changing leaves from the side of the street and deliver those, tied in a perfectly entwined string of yarn, usually yellow or pale pink. She writes notes then too, usually longer ones to make up for the lack of flowers, and Robin wants to tell her she could write the alphabet on the back of a piece of cardboard, rip it, stomp on it, and burn it; Robin would still cherish it, frame it and hang it on her wall like it’s a piece of world class art. 

Nancy always laughs when she says this, too.

Either way, Robin keeps the notes and the photos in a journal in her bedside table, and on nights that her mother is too drunk and her father is too sad and Steve won’t pick up his phone, she looks through the book filled with Nancy’s love and knows that everything is alright. 

There was a time, years ago, where Robin wasn’t sure she’d ever get any kind of affection that was enough for her. She’d blamed it on being needy, being bossy, being a tryhard or a prude or a  _ queer,  _ because despite the way she adorns subtle rainbow glitter on her cheeks throughout the month of June (even after seeing the way her father scoffs at the paper when the third page says something about a  _ homosexual  _ parade in San Francisco), there was a time when she wanted to change, when she felt she needed to change. 

Nancy doesn’t seem to give her identity a second thought. She talks about missing Jonathan sometimes, about how she misses the friendship between them and the way that it had built to something far more substantial, more valuable, and Robin isn’t even jealous of it, not really. She understands what that kind of bond is like, regardless of orientation, and she’s glad Nancy’s experienced it. It’s the kind of connection Nancy deserves, after all. 

She always wonders briefly if Nancy would be better off continuing what she had with Jonathan, chasing him down or moving to be with him or starting a long distance relationship. She’s told her before that she could at least start sending him letters again, like she had done before she and Robin had began dancing around each other. She’d be safer, Robin knows that. She wouldn’t have to hide, not for Robin’s sake and not at all. The Wheelers’ like Robin, sure, but most people do. She’s a good girl and she’s well aware of it, but she’s sure they liked Jonathan more. He’s a better man. 

“Not true,” Nancy insists with enough heat to make Robin feel burned. She’s almost mad at her for even entertaining the thought. “Don’t you dare think that for even a second, okay? No, Robin. No.” 

But then she’ll add, gentler and almost begging,  _ “please.” _

She’ll pull her in for a kiss, so hard and fierce and intense that Robin shakes, and she doesn’t realize she’s crying until Nancy’s hands brush against her cheeks and come away wet.

“I’m sorry,” Robin thinks to say, but she doesn’t. They both know why she thinks this way, why the world thinks this way. To so many outsiders, to even a few of their friends, their kind of love makes no sense— hell, it doesn’t even deserve to exist, to be considered. And while Karen and Ted are kind (Karen more than Ted; he’s a bit oblivious and still refers to Robin as Nancy’s friend, though there’s no harm or bite or even the slightest bit of malice behind his words), it had taken Mike and Holly a few weeks of seeing Robin in the same light that they had viewed Jonathan.

“So you’re  _ dating  _ her?” Mike had asked his sister on the morning of what had ended up being the coldest day of the year. He said it like he didn’t even know that it was possible for girls to date other girls, and Nancy took a step back at his remark, at his audacity. He had been bundled up in his snowsuit by the front door while Robin idled in her car at the edge of the street, sitting in silence because her radio antenna had broken off god knows how long ago. Robin hadn’t heard a word of the conversation, but she’d seen the stiffness in Mike’s posture, the wringing of Nancy’s gloved hands and her swift, fleeting glance at Robin’s red Chevrolet, and she could infer.

(Robin wonders if Mike knows how his best friend looks at him. Eyes full of softness, voice full of wonder and compassion and genuine interest, Robin recognizes the way that Will acts around him. She wouldn’t dare bring it up, the things that she sees; she knows better. She doesn’t even tell Nancy, not even when Will does something cute like come over with a batch of warm homemade cookies just for Mike, his “best buddy.” Robin wants to talk to him, to tell him he’s not alone in how he feels, that he’s not wrong or dirty or gross or anything short of wonderful. She hopes he knows that he’s all right in who he is, in every aspect of his being. She knows what that kid’s been through, and she thinks he needs a good hug and a few words of advice, something to hold onto that’s both physical and emotional. Besides, she recognizes that yearning in him; she knows sooner or later he’s going to go after what he wants, and she hopes for his sake that it’s sooner.)

Nancy is prideful in the way that she’d gone after Robin and honestly, it’s beautiful. She reflects often, bringing Robin books about sexuality and identity— and honestly, it’s not the most introspective content given that it’s from Hawkins Public Library, but Nancy devours it in an adorable kind of way.

“I’m bisexual,” she tells Robin one day, tearing away from her book and announcing the statament like it already wasn’t obvious. 

Robin nods, giving her a soft smile. “I figured.”

Nancy blushes a little. “I didn’t think there was a word for it.”

This makes Robin laugh. It’s bittersweet, in a way, how much easier it is for her girlfriend to exist. They’ve gotten some rude comments at Scoops Ahoy, the new one that just opened down the street, and they have to be careful where they show affection in public, if they do at all, but Nancy takes it all in stride. 

“I love you,” she says matter-of-factly when Robin brings this up, and it’s the first time she says it, the words rolling off her tongue so easily that it makes both of them pause and do a double take. 

“I’m not afraid to be with you,” she continues, tripping over her words only a little, though her cheeks grow bright red with every passing second, “and I don’t care what people say or think. It’s scary, sure, but it’s scarier to imagine being without you or to keep who we are a secret. We have nothing to be afraid of, no matter what people think.”

It’s quiet for a second. Robin’s heart pounds so hard she worries she might pass out, and she wonders briefly if she’s dreaming, if she was killed by the Mind Flayer in Star Court and the past year and a half has just been a beautiful, twisted version of her own personal heaven.

But then Nancy speaks again, making Robin’s heart rate quicken even more.

“And I mean it,” she says. “I do love you.”

Robin lurches into her space so fast she almost forgets how to properly move her limbs. 

“I love you, too,” she breathes out, fast and insistent and almost like she’s running out of time to admit it. “I love you so much, Nance,  _ so much.” _

It’s the first time they’ve said it out loud, but they’ve both known how they’d felt for months. Robin had almost forgotten that they hadn’t said it to each other; she’d hung up the phone early so many times, stumbling over her tongue as to not say those three little words that felt so much like habit despite never having been said. And to be honest, she expected to say them first, given how much of a total wreck she was for the woman, but she can’t find a single thing to complain about the way it had turned out.

That’s how she feels about her life, too. Everything is finally starting to make sense.

“One cinnamon sprinkle for my cinnamon sprinkle,” Nancy says the next morning when she shows up at her own doorstep after running morning errands, checkered pastry box in hand. The top of her head is dusted with snow, making her look like an angel of sorts, and Robin grins so hard her cheeks hurt at the mere sight of her. 

On the couch beside Mike, Will, Dustin, and Erica, eating her eggs that had gone cold in the process of trying to make enough for the kids once they woke up, she lunges up to grab her donut and Robin’s hand, pulling her close in thanks. Nancy leans down, kissing the sugar off Robin’s nose after she takes a bite, and sighs. Robin can see Dustin pretending to gag out of the corner of her eye but she can’t bring herself to care.

“Morning,” Robin mumbles against Nancy’s lips. “I love you.”

She says it just because they’ve crossed that threshold, because she can, because it’s true, because she doesn’t think she’s ever going to get tired of loving her.

Nancy’s lips stay on Robin’s for a long time. 

“Do they always have to be this sappy?” Erica scoffs. “And gross?”

Robin grins against Nancy’s teeth.

“Yes,” Nancy confirms when they finally pull away. “Now come on, Buckley, got any energy left to make  _ me  _ some of your killer eggs?”

“I’ve got energy for just about anything with you,” Robin murmurs, just quiet enough for Nancy to hear and for Ted and Karen  _ not to.  _

The way Nancy slaps a gentle hand against Robin’s ass is discreet, but the little yelp she lets out in response is anything but. She shoots Nancy a look, giggling as she reaches for the carton of eggs, and she sighs in relief. She thinks she could do this forever, and she prays to god, any and every one up there, that she’ll be lucky enough to. 

**Author's Note:**

> If you enjoyed this, please let me know! Come say hi in the comments or at my Tumblr blog under the same username, sweeterthankarma.


End file.
